The Times reports, today that the National Party of Germany, is likely to win “between 4.8 per cent and 7 per cent of the vote this weekend in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern”.
And this is how they did it:
“There is a whole network of right-wing-run companies, above all in the local building business,” says Günther Hoffmann, who set up an association in Anklam to monitor the rise of the neo-Nazis. Small hotels are being bought up. A giveaway paper called The Island Messenger is edited and published by the extreme Right and is widely read.
This economic power — in a region where unemployment is more than 20 per cent — has translated into political clout. Firms in right-wing hands hire right-wing sympathisers as apprentices. Slowly but surely, neo-Nazis have become an indispensable part of society in northeast Germany. They sponsor sports competitions and dance evenings. The baker offers loaves with smooth brown crusts called glatze, the German for skinhead. There is no niche of society here that has not been infiltrated.
…
It is the likes of Herr Andrejewski who understand the mechanics of turning public frustration into a political weapon. He is not a maths teacher but a lawyer, and is using his legal skills to set up an advisory office for those on social welfare — the NPD intends to flood employment offices with official complaints and paralyse their work. The worse it gets for Mecklenburg, the better the far Right can present itself as the answer for those seeking social justice.
I shouldn’t need to make the point, but these days, who knows? Just in case of doubt: the NPD should not be mistaken for a welfare movement, or part of a struggle for liberation.
Update: But Francis Sedgemore chastises The Times’ for alarmist reporting.